My memory is a bit hazy of it, but from what I recall both of our buzzers did something and there was a bit of confusion as to who got there first (though me and the crew seemed to generally agree it was her)...she answered incorrectly and they decided to redo the entire conundrum for some reason t...

Interesting information, thanks. So the buzzers aren't actually high-tech enough to determine who buzzes first? I'm not sure - I think it was a technical glitch. Something like my buzzer sounded but her's lit up. Might have been the other way around or something different altogether. Yes, that's od...

Beat Elliott to the conundrum today! But seriously, another great game and another unlucky opponent. Got that all-important last numbers though! The conundrum originally wasn't this and the slowness was in part due to me being a bit flustered by a bit of controversy. It was originally MOUSEFLLY, an...

Beat Elliott to the conundrum today! But seriously, another great game and another unlucky opponent. Got that all-important last numbers though! The conundrum originally wasn't this and the slowness was in part due to me being a bit flustered by a bit of controversy. It was originally MOUSEFLLY, an...

Beat Elliott to the conundrum today! But seriously, another great game and another unlucky opponent. Got that all-important last numbers though! The conundrum originally wasn't this and the slowness was in part due to me being a bit flustered by a bit of controversy. It was originally MOUSEFLLY, an...

I never wanted to hold someone that close to getting 0 and I felt horrible that I almost did. In fact, the vowel pick in the SOLUTION round was for an E in the hope of flattening it out a bit. She took it very well though, and again was lovely both on and off screen.

Irritating? Can be, especially when someone will pick 6 consonants on a selection screaming for another vowel (like with III vowels). Can I blame them? Not at all, the aim of a match is to win, not produce the highest maximum you can. If your speciality is 3 vowels there's no reason why you shouldn'...

Like to put in a word for Kieran - he took it very well and was very pleasant to talk to in the green room. I didn't enjoy pulling off the largest winning margin, especially as there was a few rounds here he'd have got points against most other people. Also realised the "are you sure?" comment made ...

I don’t know if those posts about future games are true (hence I don’t know if the hacker attended the recording) but they have been deleted by the hacker (I don’t know what they said because the hacker deleted them). Oh do us all a favour and stop trolling. Someone on your street gained access to ...

This probably should be in a seperate thread but here goes. Most people who criticise the event cite national bias collusion , hatred of the UK etc. What if the same judges that vote on the songs hear them on tape weeks before they are played on radio , social media etc with no prior knowledge as t...

UK's screwed... If ye participated properly (i.e. went through the semis) it'd already be over. I expect you to place no higher than 17th and no lower than 23rd. The song's not terrible, but John Lundvik definitely kept the best one for himself. Netherlands, Switzerland, Iceland, Australia, Russia ...

Although our song definitely wasn't winner material, it definitely didn't deserve last. Also, what a surprise to see Greece and Cyprus giving each other 12 points from the jury vote (yawn) - I'm amazed these juries aren't banned yet. Still, the song that won wasn't bad, it wasn't one of my favourite...

Well, I guess most people felt sorry for John, as I did - until he picked 3 large in the penultimate round. What was he playing at? OK, I appreciate he almost certainly didn't know the record was in reach, but it must have been obvious that Elliot was on for a fantastic score. Why potentially make ...

What's this nonsense with the fake going high on the 4-large? If you're doing e.g. 75×50/25, you don't start with 75×50. Poor form. If I've got this right, 75x50=3750 3750/25=150 is poor form, when you could say 75/25=3 3x50=150. But 75/25=3 3x50=150 when you could say 100+50=150 is OK? If you're s...

It's always good to see a talented young player come along, especially one who's good with numbers, and plays in a friendly, relaxed manner with a smile on his face. Such a shame that he had to play Elliot.... When you think of some of the people who have won half a dozen or more games, even got th...

Very nice debut. Looking towards 1000 now! I felt a bit sorry for Arran actually. He played well over the last couple of days, but I think Elliott got to him a bit and he didn't score in a single letters round! He definitely deserved a lot more than 40, that shirt the other day deserved to get him ...

I think Innis's point is that you can't just look at the percentage difference between top and second in a completely different thing and expect it to have some relevance. Different distributions have different standard deviations etc., so you can't just look at percentage difference to see which i...

Jeanne Calment (122 years, 164 days) is 2.67% older than Sarah Knauss (119 years, 97 days). For those claiming this to be "too much an outlier" - do you also believe that Mount Everest isn't actually 8848m? Mount Everest (8,848m) is 2.75% taller than K2 (8,611m). There's loads of sets of data where...

I'm not surprised, this sort of thing isn't at all unusual. I remember reading a really old Guinness Book Of Records that my grandma had (1960 edition I think) and it was noted in there that the longevity records attract far more fraudulent claims than any other. They were at the time dealing with ...

Here's a stat that's useful: experts have estimated that the chances of any human being in the whole history living to the age of 122 is about 1 in 7. So, Jeanne Calment was unlikely, but not so unlikely that we'd have serious doubts about the validity of her claim purely based on statistical improb...

Have you seen the evidence? Do you know what it consists of? A decent amount of it, yes. I was hoping you might elaborate. I feel that no matter how many censuses and documents I cite you're just going to dismiss them as "could be fabricated". I'm happy to provide a list of the documents that exist...

The oldest people alive are probably not known . If they were born in a country that don't carry out a census who will know. I used to use this argument for tallest Man , fastest man etc. If they live somewhere remote how would we know To be the oldest person alive you need to have certain conditio...

But on the other hand (and I think this is the most pertinent point) it would have been a bit weird for the entire small town to go along with the fraud. Jeanne's daughter would have had to pretend to be her mother's husband for a start, which would have been a bit weird to say the least. Surely so...

"The latest round of allegations was sparked by a Russian geriatrician called Valery Novoselov of RUDN University in Moscow. In his clinical judgment, Calment didn’t seem to display the hallmarks of a supercentenarian (the term demographers use for people over 110). He never met Calment but says the...

With almost 100% certainty no, she wasn't. One of my interests is in longevity and I've been following it for a number of years now and am thoroughly convinced of her case. For those unaware, to be validated by the GRG (gerontology research group) you have to have at least 3 (I think) documents supp...

Had one recently where I was living in some building (I think temporarily) with James Robinson and an apterite (who will remain nameless) and a female who is implied to be his girlfriend. Said apterite and his girl are in their room "chatting loudly" and James keeps listening through the wall and be...

Is Maggie an Apterite? You don't casually declare CRAZING without any hint of it being a risk if your only exposure to words is "real life". She's a retired librarian, which may explain her above average vocabulary - if you work in a library (and presumably read a lot too) then you're bound to pick...

Had one last night where I was on apterous, and Rob Foster had just maxed a 15 rounder against Nude (might have been 142-17). Apparently Luke J_D had a tourney to play with him, and they started the game, however everything now turned into a darts match which I am now watching. Both start off with 1...

Had a dream recently that a society/club was trying to encourage me to sign up whilst telling me they had "a diverse range of virgins". One of their main selling points was that Paul Erdunast was a member.

Had a dream last night that my old ICT teacher for my early years of secondary had taken a whole lecture hall of people hostage (she even had a gun...). Amongst the people in there, I remember Fred distinctly being one (there may have been other apterites). Anyways, this teacher decides to occasiona...

I've said this a few times this week about players like Adam and Jimmy, but Kerry seems like the consistent type to win a few more. Does not strike me as octochamp material as it stands , but 109 is a very nice score to debut on nevertheless, and it was a good game to watch! I think she's plenty ca...

((9x8x6)+1+1)/2=167 for R9 - pretty chuffed with that! Though well done Dylan for ending my 179 show winning streak against the TV :P. Very well done both today, absolutely insane standard! Shame to see you go Gemma but good luck for 2014 onwards :) I know I'm several years late to this, but I did ...

Words fail me - amazing. Was nowhere on the conundrum (had got as far as -OUS, but no idea as to the rest!). Zarte you have been absolutely brilliant throughout the tournament, losing just 1 round I believe! Congratulations on being one of a very very elite group of grand slam winners!!!! :D :D :D O...

What a game. Wow. Game of the championship for me - really couldn't call that one way or the other. Tom - to lose with 110 is a real shame and that conundrum solve at the end was amazing, totally beat me there. You've been brilliant to watch, always smiling and generally very amiable. :) Bra - give ...

Had a dream last night that I was playing in the final of champion of champions against Zarte Siempre. It's made apparent that I finished runner up as my series, and Zarte won his in my dreamland (I recall being really determined to win this, though I did recognise being in the final of both made me...